SEA LIONS AND TREES AND SALMON

Sunday, May 04, 2008

David Reinhard

The Oregonian

I 'm with Joyce Kilmer -- "I think that I shall
never see/ A poem lovely as a tree."

I'm even with city Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who
recently waxed poetical before the Portland City Council on
the "incredible" "show-stopping" trees
growing in Portland. But before I could recall the last
lines of Kilmer's poem -- "Poems are made by fools
like me, / But only God can make a tree!" -- Saltzman
went on to say something that's creepy and chilling:

"It sometimes pains me to think that we have no ability
to control their destiny -- that a private landowner can
take this tree down on a whim. So I think somewhere, woven
into all this, is that we establish more of a notion that
trees have rights, too, that trees have rights. And
that's what we're looking at in terms of some of
the enforcement policies that we're working on and the
continued designation of more heritage trees for their
protection where we have willing property owners but I do
think we have to look where we don't have willing
property owners . . . ."

Where to start here? Is it Saltzman's notion that
"trees have rights, too"? Is it his obvious
appetite to control the destiny of trees that their owners
can take down on a whim? (Question: If trees have rights,
too, how can Saltzman arrogate unto himself the control of
their destiny?) Is it his condescending notion that
Portlanders are too impulsive and arboreally insensitive to
recognize the importance of the trees on their property? Is
it his itch to use the force of law to bring "unwilling
landowners" into line? Or is it the fact that this
"trees are people, too" mumbo jumbo comes from the
City Council's most measured member?

It's an odd calculus Saltzman has in store for us. The rights that Saltzman wants to give trees will come at the expense of the rights that Americans have long held, even in Portland: property rights that allow private landowners to tend to the trees, shrubs, grass and rocks on their piece of heaven....